Bantrel

Ahead in the sandsBantrel provides a wide range of services for its petroleum clients in the oil sands of Alberta, Gary Toushek discovers. Bantrel began 25 years ago as a small group of engineers with the objective of pursuing gas and oil projects in the Beaufort Sea, north of the Arctic Circle. When a drilling moratorium was put on that region, the group began working for some of the emerging oil sands giants in Alberta, such as Suncor and Syncrude, and as the oil sands grew, Bantrel grew as well. Today, Calgary-based Bantrel (with offices in Toronto and Edmonton) is the largest engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) company servicing the energy sector in Canada. It has more than 6,000 employees, 3,500 of which are professional and technical staff performing engineering and supporting the companyÔÇÖs construction and field operations. Other heavy-duty clients include Shell Canada Ltd., Petro-Canada, Imperial Oil and Chevron.BantrelÔÇÖs parent company is San FranciscoÔÇôbased Bechtel Corporation, one of the largest engineering, construction and project management companies in the US, with a client portfolio in energy, transportation, communications, mining, oil and gas, and government agencies.ÔÇ£Whenever we need additional manpower, specialized expertise or equipment for a major project, we can draw upon the depth of resources from BechtelÔÇÖs worldwide offices,ÔÇØ says Mike Gordon, vice president, manager of business development, who handles BantrelÔÇÖs market analysis, strategic planning, and sales with external clients. He lists BantrelÔÇÖs services as feasibility studies, front-end and detailed engineering, procurement, project management, construction, commissioning and start-up, risk management, loss prevention and operational assistance. ÔÇ£In addition to our production EPC forces, we have a strong, capable estimating group, as well as specialty resources like metallurgical design, a carbon capture technology group and other unique engineering expertise.ÔÇØGordon says the companyÔÇÖs major markets are heavy oil production, oil sands upgrading and petroleum refining. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre responsible for engineering more than 60 percent of AlbertaÔÇÖs current synthetic oil production, in excess of 500,000 barrels per day.ÔÇØ Bantrel designs and builds upstream facilities that produce heavy oil, mined and in-situ oil sands bitumen and downstream facilities that include upgraders and refineries, producing varying grades of synthetic crudes, synbit product blends and refined products. Bantrel is the dominant EPC company operating in the downstream oil sands sector but is also working on leading upstream projects. ÔÇ£We just signed a new contract with a multinational player to perform the engineering and procurement on a landmark project that is envisioned to be the largest in-situ production facility in the oil sands, ultimately producing 90,000 barrels per day from its first phase,ÔÇØ says Gordon.In terms of refineries, Bantrel handles maintenance programs of existing facilities, upgrades and revamps of infrastructure, as well as the entire package of design, construction, operational start-up and testing of new facilities. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve been involved in refineries almost from the beginning of their development in Alberta,ÔÇØ says Gordon. ÔÇ£In fact, we have the longest standing alliance in the Exxon family of companies, at Imperial OilÔÇÖs Strathcona refinery in Edmonton.ÔÇØ A major effort these days is converting and configuring refineries to handle the heavier feedstocks produced in the oil sands and from abroad; Bantrel is currently working on two of these refinery conversion projects for Petro-Canada. Two other major projects currently under way in Alberta are the Scotford Upgrader Expansion 1 near Edmonton (a 100,000-barrels-per-day Shell CanadaÔÇôled joint venture with Chevron and Western Oil Sands that Bantrel and Bechtel are executing together) and SuncorÔÇÖs third upgrader, the Voyageur Project, in Fort McMurray. These projects represent over $15 billion in capital spending.Power generation and cogeneration are other areas of involvement for Bantrel. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖve done a number of power projects,ÔÇØ Gordon says, ÔÇ£mostly as an adjunct to our core business line of upgrading refineries. We work with our parent company on larger power projects, for example, involving integrated gasification and combined cycle, an older technology thatÔÇÖs been reactivated for large power projects for its unique efficiency benefits. It burns waste products that are typically either stockpiled or have low residual value after the refining process, for example, the petroleum coke and asphalt-like materials that result from the process of upgrading heavy oil. Natural gas can burn these to produce syngas and hydrogen, and in the course of the gasification of waste products, the heat generated can be used to produce steam for power. So several of these projects are being currently studied, and once they move to the next stage, weÔÇÖll get involved with our parent company to do them. In the meantime, weÔÇÖre still working on clean power technology using cogeneration facilitiesÔÇöturbine-driven power production systems.ÔÇØ One of BantrelÔÇÖs emerging business lines is environmental stewardship, especially in view of tougher government regulations, both provincial and federal, for petroleum and heavy industrial companies in the oil sands. ÔÇ£WeÔÇÖre working on a number of initiatives for ourselves and to assist our clients,ÔÇØ says Gordon. ÔÇ£We have a corporate environmental committee and a sustainability charter listing goals, and we demonstrate all metrics in environmental performance as well as corporate operational performance in a transparent fashion using a special, innovative Internet portal. For example, we have a pilot program for using hybrid vehicles on job sites, and thereÔÇÖs a whole array of other initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint, including a carpooling program, implementation of the three RÔÇÖs [reduce, reuse, recycle] and a construction equipment fuel management program.ÔÇØ Bantrel has a greenhouse gas technology group that specializes in the development and implementation of new technologies for carbon captureÔÇöa method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by capturing carbon dioxide produced by petroleum and other industrial facilities and storing it, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. The oil sands is a busy place right now, which puts constraints on the marketplace, and having a resourceful parent company helps. ÔÇ£There are long lead times on major equipment,ÔÇØ Gordon says, ÔÇ£and thereÔÇÖs a very distributed supply chain, which is necessary to remain competitive in the global market, so Bechtel has a global supply group that helps us monitor quality and a logistics arm that ships what we need.ÔÇØ